


What's a Bed Between Friends?

by dannyPURO



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Blow Jobs, First Kiss, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Hand Jobs, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sharing a Bed, Smut, enjolras is a dork
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-09 04:54:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17995241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dannyPURO/pseuds/dannyPURO
Summary: It’s not that Grantaire and Enjolras aren't friends--it’s just that they’re not that kind of friends.Which is why Grantaire is struck so dumb, because he hadn’t even been paying that much attention to it all--there was a mix-up with the hotel rooms, one of them won’t be available like it was supposed to be, there’s another room but it’s a single--when Enjolras, still so rumpled from the drive, had said, soft as anything, “Grantaire and I can take that room, it’s okay.”





	What's a Bed Between Friends?

The thing is, it’s not like Enjolras and Grantaire aren’t friends.

That’s not even news, not really. They’re doing a lot better with the whole… friendship thing. They don’t fight as much, not by far; when they do, it feels a lot more like a debate than the no-holds-barred verbal brawl that it sometimes used to become. They hang out, sometimes, outside of larger gatherings--there was that one time, just a month or so ago, when Enjolras even come to Grantaire’s gallery opening and stayed for most of the evening. (That was pretty weird, Grantaire’s not gonna lie.) They’re both trying. It’s good. It works out.

And so it’s not that they’re not friends--it’s just that they’re not _that_ kind of friends.

The kind of friends to room together, to sleep side by side, to maybe cuddle up under a hotel comforter for lack of space.

They’re _not._

(Grantaire can hardly trust himself to touch Enjolras, even now.)

Which is why Grantaire is struck dumb, because he hadn’t even been paying that much attention to it all--there was a mix-up with the hotel rooms, one of them won’t be available like it was supposed to be, there’s another room but it’s a single--when Enjolras, still so rumpled from the drive, had said, soft as anything, “Grantaire and I can take that room, it’s okay.”

What.

Seriously, what?

Grantaire is, all of a sudden, very aware of many sets of eyes on him. “Yeah,” he manages, because he is a god damned fool, “That’s fine.”

Enjolras beams.

Grantaire has the feeling that he has just made an enormous mistake.

But it’s too late, it’s settled, and Combeferre is passing out little envelopes of key-cards, and Grantaire is fucking screwed.

Because, okay, it’s also hardly news that Grantaire has been in love with Enjolras for literally four years of his life. And that every so often, he still gets the _Enjolras-leans-his-head-on-my-shoulder-and-holds-my-hand_ dream. And that if he isn’t paying attention while he’s doodling, any feature he draws will inevitably turn into Enjolras’s eyes, or Enjolras’s hands, or Enjolras’s rare little smile, or Enjolras’s ear and the lovely blonde curl around it and the freckle just below.

Whatever.

It’s just two nights.

So what if standing in the elevator beside him is already making Grantaire’s heart pound--expectations have little effect on reality, yadda yadda yadda.

It’s fine.

 

* * *

 

The room is… small.

Or, okay, maybe the room is a perfectly normal size for a mid-price hotel room meant for one to two people, but the bed is small.

Or, okay, maybe the bed is a perfectly normal sized double bed, but it’s really, really small for one fully grown adult man two share with another fully grown adult man who he is desperately in love with.

That might be the issue.

“Grantaire?” Enjolras asks, hovering somewhere near the entryway.

Grantaire, ever-eloquent, says, “Huh?”

“Is the room fine? We could… I’m sure you can still get someone to switch with you, if you don’t want to… to sleep here. Also. To sleep here in addition to me, I-” Fuck, Enjolras is making some hopelessly distressed expression, gnawing at his lip and looking floorwards. “I shouldn’t have just volunteered you, I’m realizing, I probably made you very uncomfortable and put you in a position in which you didn’t feel as though you could say that no, you didn’t want-”

“It’s fine.” It’s totally not fine, but somehow, Enjolras frowning like that and speaking so softly is even less fine, so… “It’ll be great, actually.”

Enjolras smiles, but it’s a little hesitant, like he’s not quite sure that Grantaire isn’t totally fucking with him for some cruel and incomprehensible reason. (God, Grantaire was shitty, way back when.) “Really?”

Grantaire lets out a breath, dumps his duffel on the floor by the dresser. “Totally. We can talk about that new cooking show you like so much.”

“It’s a mini-series.” God, he’s such a dork.

“Whatever you like.”

Enjolras, having seemingly made his decision, fully enters the room and begins transferring his clothes from his bag--striped, with Courfeyrac’s initials monogrammed on it, so not really his bag, after all--to the drawers. Again, a dork.

Too bad Grantaire’s pretty much unconditionally enamored, because if he wasn’t, this whole situation would be pretty funny.

As it is, he’s just hopelessly charmed. But hey, maybe that’s enough. Maybe this will simply be an opportunity to observe, never mind how creepy that sounds. Maybe he can just enjoy the way Enjolras conducts himself for the weekend. They can watch obscure documentaries and talk and Grantaire will feel the way he always does whenever Enjolras pays him any mind--far too ecstatic. Maybe it’ll all balance out.

 

* * *

 

It doesn’t really balance out. Or, it does for a while; they watch Enjolras’s dumb mini-series, and Enjolras sits on the bed beside Grantaire in his fucking flannel pajama set, eyes glued to the screen, making the occasional comment about flavor profiles. (It’s all useless--Enjolras can’t cook to save his life.) It’s actually a really, really nice evening. Enjolras was right--they work well together.

And then the episode ends, and Enjolras turns to Grantaire and says “I should go to sleep, I think, because I don’t really operate well on limited sleep, and I have some things that I need to get to tomorrow, but- but that doesn’t mean that I’m making you go to bed, or anything, because you can keep working, I don’t mind at all, but I do think that I’m-” he swallows. “I’m going to go to sleep, yeah.”

For all that Grantaire is dreading having to sleep beside Enjolras, he can in no way bring himself to keep Enjolras up late while Enjolras lies there and pretends to be able to get to sleep but can’t because Grantaire fucking _knows_ he’s a light sleeper, he’s overheard him talking to Combeferre about noise levels. And so Grantaire scrubs a hand through his hair, shrugs, and says, “Yeah, no, I think I’m gonna turn in, too.”

At least one of them will get some sleep.

Enjolras already brushed his teeth and took out his contacts--Grantaire knows because he’s wearing the glasses that he usually only sees when Enjolras is really, really stressed--but Grantaire hasn’t, so he goes to the bathroom and takes a piss and washes up and brushes his teeth and takes a moment to stare at himself in the mirror and remind himself to breathe.

When he comes back out, Enjolras is under the covers and waiting for him and Grantaire just can’t help but to think about how fucking domestic this all feels.

The universe is his enemy, honestly.

He shuts off the lights and gets into bed--as close to the edge as possible, mind--anyways.

“Goodnight, Grantaire,” Enjolras whispers.

“‘Night, Enj,” Grantaire says, willing himself not to look away from the way the moonlight hits a certain row of plaster swirls on the ceiling.

It’s going to be a long night.

 

* * *

 

Only, it isn’t. Grantaire falls asleep.

He knows he falls asleep, because he wakes up, hard as anything and staring at the 2:41 on the clock face and practically glued to Enjolras’s side.

Enjolras, who is awake and staring back at him.

Fuck.

_Fuck._

“Fuck,” Grantaire sputters, once his brain starts working enough to fully process the situation. “Fuck, Enjolras, I-” he scrambles back as best he can, but his arm is still numb and pinned beneath Enjolras and altogether too difficult to extricate in his panicked state of half-consciousness. “Fuck, I-”

God, what, even? How does anyone explain something like this? What is there to say? That he was having a sex dream about young Keanu Reeves? That he has a medical condition? That he’s not even hard, and that he accidentally brought his Wii controller on the trip and left it in the bed? That-

“Grantaire.” Enjolras lays a delicate hand on the side of Grantaire’s neck, stopping all potential thoughts from occurring. “I think I woke you up. I apologize.”

Grantaire lets out a frantic huff of laughter. “I don’t think-”

Enjolras continues. “Would you want to have sex?”

And Grantaire is utterly, completely frozen.

He is very, very aware of Enjolras looking right at him with those big blue eyes.

He clears his throat, tries to make some form of word a few times before he manages it. “What?”

“I was just thinking about it.”

Seriously, _what._

Grantaire hazards a glance downwards; it’s hard to tell, what with the rumpled comforter and the angle, but Enjolras might totally be hard and he’s definitely talking about sex and he’s potentially propositioning Grantaire and they’re in bed together and it’s 2:42 in the morning, now, and none of this makes any sense.

“You-”

“Only if you want to, of course.”

What the _fuck._

Grantaire, of course, almost just says yes. Yes, because this is Enjolras, totally dorky, adorable, wonderful, beautiful, crazy smart, terrifying, perfect Enjolras, who Grantaire has loved since basically forever. Yes, because this is probably going to be the only time Grantaire is ever going to get not only to fuck him, but also just to touch that soft, glowing skin. Yes, because Grantaire is _still hard_ and Enjolras is fucking _looking at him_.

He stops himself, right at the last minute, mostly due to the little imaginary emotional-support-Jehan he consults at times like this. (Not like this has ever happened before, ever.) On one hand, emotional-support-Jehan would say, this is sex with Enjolras. On the other, Grantaire worked really, really hard to be able to have a normal friendship with Enjolras, and he’s so proud of the way things have turned out, and he values it like crazy, and he’s gotten so much better at accepting things the way they are, and this would totally change everything.

“Grantaire?” Enjolras is looking a little more hesitant, now, which is both more familiar and kind of awful, because that’s not the problem, not at all. “We really don’t have to, you know.”

Grantaire swallows the lump in his throat. “You- you want to? Me? You- want?”

Enjolras frowns, like the idea that he would want anything to do with Grantaire sexually isn’t totally fucking bizarre. “Well, yes.”

Sex with Enjolras wins the debate, no contest.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay, let’s have sex.”

Enjolras beams, moves closer, then pauses. “When I say sex, I mostly just meant that I wanted to blow you, actually. Sex as an umbrella term. I don’t have any lube with me, and it’s really late at night, so I was just thinking… Yeah?”

Grantaire can’t _breathe._ “You-” Enjolras wants to _blow him?_

“Or we could do something else, I don’t know. I was just throwing ideas out there.”

“No,” Grantaire wheezes, “You can- you can-”

“Blow you?”

“Sure.”

“Okay,” Enjolras says, and then he’s shifting, moving on top of Grantaire and tugging Grantaire’s pajama pants down and off and then looking back up at Grantaire to say, “Would it be weird if I took my shirt off?”

Grantaire is just going to die, really. “That’d be fine.”

And so Enjolras, straddling Grantaire’s thighs, starts in on all those dorky little white buttons on his dorky little pajama top, only, his hands are almost… trembling, really, so Grantaire reaches out and carefully, carefully undoes all those buttons, instead. Enjolras stares down at his hands as they work, and then-

And then the shirt is open, and that’s more skin than Grantaire has ever seen him show, before, and he just-

He just has to touch, he just has to. He slips his hands up and under the shirt, runs them up the soft, slender lines of Enjolras’s stomach and ribs and chest and then across, over the shoulders, before he can bring himself to push the shirt off completely. And there Enjolras sits, shirtless, astride Grantaire’s legs, watching Grantaire so intently that Grantaire is pretty certain that he’s slipped up and let Enjolras see that he’s totally in love with him, right, absolutely fucking enamored in every single way.

Enjolras smiles--so then again, maybe not. And then he shifts down, nudges Grantaire’s legs apart and around his back, and then just fucking licks a stripe up Grantaire’s cock.

“Fuck,” Grantaire manages, and then, he tells himself, that’s enough. He’ll not be a clingy, loud fuck. He’ll not let Enjolras know just how much this matters, just how _much_ it all is on every level imaginable.

Enjolras keeps going, and Grantaire immediately realizes that that’s going to be really, really difficult. Because… Well, okay, so maybe it is a little mechanical, at times, but that’s kind of just the way Enjolras is, and that almost makes it better, or worse, or _fuck, fuck, fuck,_ because if it isn’t still the best blowjob Grantaire has ever had. Because Enjolras is going for it completely, twisting his wrist in a way that’s just fucking killing Grantaire and sucking and doing something with his tongue every other stroke that makes Grantaire see fucking _stars._

And then Enjolras slips a hand up Grantaire’s tee shirt--not far, not at first, and hardly even noticeable, were it anybody else’s hand on any other occasion. But it’s Enjolras (Enjolras, Enjolras, Enjolras, Enjolras) and he keeps _going,_ feeling Grantaire up further and reaching up to rub trembling fingers over ribs and skin and hair and Grantaire’s nipple, even, after a bit, and Grantaire doesn’t understand what’s happening anymore but it’s too much.

Grantaire fists his hands in his own hair, tugs hard, buries his face in the flesh of his arm and bites down on his own fucking bicep, because if he doesn’t, he’s just certain that he’ll do something stupid and dangerous and weird like get his fingers into those golden curls and brush them back from where they’ve been falling in Enjolras’s eyes and then murmur everything from too-sincere compliments on the blowjob to just _Enjolras_ to _beautiful_ to _I love you._

Yeah, better not to say anything at all.

Enjolras ups the tempo, lets his hips roll against the mattress, pulls off just to start in again with renewed vigor and a new trick just a split second later, and Grantaire is having trouble breathing and he can’t keep his eyes open but he can’t bare to close them, either, because this is _real_ and Enjolras is between his legs and shirtless and groping his fucking chest and beautiful and _sucking his dick,_ and oh, oh, any second now Grantaire is going to--

“Enjolras,” he chokes out, and he reaches down, just to give one touch, but somehow, his hand ends up in those curls, and once he’s let go just a bit, he can’t stop himself. He groans. “Fuck, Enjolras, Enjolras, fuck, Enj-” he’s holding too tight, far too tight, but Enjolras moans, high and airy and around Grantaire’s fucking _cock,_ and he can’t help it, not anymore.

Enjolras opens his eyes, looks up, and Grantaire is fucking done for, but this is the best thing that’s ever happened to him so it can’t just end and-

Enjolras looks at Grantaire with those big, wide, watery blue eyes, and he keeps fucking going, and Grantaire nearly fucking has a heart attack, but more importantly, he arches up off the bed, groans out something akin either to _Enjolras_ or _Oh my God,_ and then, an instant later, sputters out, “Shit, shit, sorry, sorry, sorry, I-”

He’s going to come, for real.

“Shit,” he gasps. “I’m gonna- I’m gonna- You gotta-”

Enjolras pulls off but keeps jerking him and buries his face in Grantaire’s bared stomach and breathes in deep and moans.

Grantaire comes.

Which is a bit of an understatement-- he thinks he feels more in those moments than he ever has in any of his previous orgasms combined. And that’s about the extent of his thinking, save for thoughts of _EnjolrasEnjolrasEnjolrasEnjolrasEnjolras,_ for about two minutes, because he’s pretty sure he nearly blacks out.

When he comes to, Enjolras is pressing messy, thoughtless kisses to his gut and rubbing up against his leg and holding so tight to his hip that he seriously might get bruises. He’s got come on the front of his shoulder.

“Enj,” Grantaire mumbles.

Enjolras moans again, that same one from before, and seriously, if Grantaire hadn’t come just moments ago, he’d be ready to go again.

“Enj, c’mere,” he says, because he may have flaws--like, a lot of flaws--but he is no lazy sex buddy. He grabs Enjolras by the shoulder, pulls him up the bed, holds him tight, only Enjolras is making things very difficult because all of a sudden, he’s pulling at Grantaire’s tee-shirt with clumsy hands. “Hey, I’m trying to-”

“ _Please,”_ Enjolras says, and Grantaire freezes, because that can’t-

He can’t-

That can’t seriously be what he wants out of this, right?

Grantaire manages a laugh, but only barely. “What are you-”

“God, _please, Grantaire, please.”_

Grantaire reaches for Enjolras’s dick, but Enjolras is still going for his shirt, and making some really, weirdly desperate noises, so he doesn’t-

Fuck it, if Enjolras thinks he wants Grantaire shirtless? Grantaire will be shirtless.

He strips the shirt off fast, sets it aside but keeps it within reach, and gestures down at himself. “Happy?”

Enjolras buries his face in Grantaire’s chest and fucking _moans._

Whatever, Enjolras has always been weird.

Grantaire reaches down again, slips a hand into Enjolras’s pajama pants, and lets himself get a bit of a lay of the land before he starts jerking him off. And God, if this isn’t just like a fucking wet dream; Enjolras, so desperate, clinging to him and thrusting into his hand and mouthing at his chest like Grantaire is the only person he’s ever wanted.

( _As if_ , Grantaire’s shitty little subconscious mutters, but he’s giving Enjolras a hand job, okay, because Enjolras already blew him, and his shitty little subconscious is just going to have to take what it can get, right now.)

Enjolras comes quick--though, Grantaire supposes, he’s been rubbing off on the bed and Grantaire’s leg for a while, so that’s probably it. He comes, gasping for breath against Grantaire, his hips kicking forwards jerkily as he rides it out, and he comes looking right at Grantaire’s fucking _face._

 _What the fuck_ doesn’t even begin to encapsulate it all, but it’s all Grantaire has.

Enjolras lies slack against Grantaire’s chest for what feels like a little too long--not too long for Grantaire, of course, because were it up to Grantaire, they would both just stay this way until the end times. But it’s an awful long time for someone who is not in love.

Sure enough, Enjolras moves, eventually. He groans and rolls over and kicks off those dorky pajama pants, then lobs them at the floor. “I came in them,” he explains, as though Grantaire didn’t know, as though it’s not totally fucking bizarre to hear a sentence like that come out of his mouth. “It got pretty gross.”

“Oh,” says Grantaire.

Enjolras settles back down against Grantaire--not directly atop him, like before, but beside him and so, so close, his cheek resting on Grantaire’s shoulder. “Thank you,” he says. “That was really nice.”

Grantaire doesn’t go to sleep for a long, long time after that, but lying beside Enjolras is so nice that it’s almost better, this way.

 

* * *

 

Come morning, Enjolras is gone. Which totally makes sense--Enjolras is an early riser, and he had some kind of morning commitment, and Grantaire didn’t get a lot of sleep and it’s late already. And it’s fine. Grantaire feels lucky, really. He got more than he ever thought he would. It was awesome.

And so Grantaire stumbles to the shower, and scrubs the dried come from his stomach, and brushes his teeth, and actually tries to make his hair look nice for once, and gets dressed, and goes downstairs to scavenge some breakfast before they take all the food away, and finds himself hiding behind an ornamental potted palm.

Because not only is Enjolras sitting in the lobby (and, okay, maybe Grantaire has been really worried about how the hell he’s going to talk to him, now), he’s in the lobby with Combeferre, and not only is he in the lobby with Combeferre, he is actively being lectured by Combeferre in the lobby.

It’s strange--Enjolras looks really, truly distressed, and Combeferre looks both incredibly annoyed and very sympathetic. Grantaire can’t hear what they’re saying--they talk soft, when it’s just the two of them--but he’s pretty certain that it’s all about some conference or meeting or whatever it is that they’re all here for, anyways.

It’s not Grantaire’s business, either way. He sneaks over to the breakfast area, grabs a cup of coffee and two croissants, and heads back upstairs, content with having avoided Enjolras for the time being. That’s a conversation he’s going to have to have post-coffee.

 

* * *

 

Actually, he ends up avoiding Enjolras for a lot longer than just the morning. It’s not even intentional--Enjolras has a lot of business to attend to, as do the majority of them, and Grantaire, who came on the trip to walk around the town and check out the art galleries, had a lot of… that to do. It’s not until the evening that it’s intentional, when Grantaire snags Bossuet and Bahorel and Joly on their way back to the hotel and convinces them to go get dinner and drinks with him.

They do go, because Grantaire is a fun dinner friend, God damn it.

They stay out late, but not too late--eleven-ish, probably. Grantaire’s phone is out of charge, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t end up drinking more than a beer and a third of Joly’s (he has, after all, been trying to tone it down), but his friends are good company and he very nearly forgets about all this awkward Enjolras business until he’s in the elevator, going up.

Fuck, maybe he’ll be really lucky and Enjolras will already be asleep. It wouldn’t be unheard of--it might even be normal, especially considering the fact that Enjolras is surely trying to avoid an awkward conversation, too. And so Grantaire opens the door quiet as anything to find Enjolras, awake in bed, reading a book.

“Hey,” Grantaire says.

Enjolras fucking _smiles._ “Grantaire. Hello.”

Okay, maybe this won’t be as bad as Grantaire had feared. He does, after all, have a bit of a tendency towards the dramatic.

And then Enjolras pats the bedspread beside him, and Grantaire realizes that it’s probably going to be exactly as awkward as one might expect, because they fucked on that bed, less than twenty four hours ago. Speaking of-

“Didn’t you-” Grantaire gestures to Enjolras’s dorky fucking pajamas. “I mean, we… Your-”

“The hotel has a laundry. I washed them today.” Enjolras plucks at the fabric of the pants. “I’m not a very big fan of their detergent, but I didn’t bring any, so I’m hardly in a position to complain.”

Grantaire finds himself laughing nervously. “Right.”

“Did you want to watch another episode of the mini-series?” Enjolras asks, and honestly, Grantaire wouldn’t really want to in any other circumstance, but it’s between this and go to sleep beside Enjolras, and that wasn’t exactly uneventful, last night.

And so Grantaire says, “Sure.”

And so Enjolras gets his laptop, and opens Netflix, and finds the show in a very round-about way, honestly, and presses play.

They watch.

Or, rather, Enjolras watches. Grantaire tries to watch, but he mostly just ends up watching Enjolras, which is why he notices it when Enjolras tries to hold back a yawn, and when his eyelids start to droop, and when he leans back heavier against the headboard.

“You know, you can go to bed, Enj,” he finally says. “We can watch this shit another time, you’re tired.”

Enjolras blushes, Grantaire is pretty sure. “I’m not-” he yawns. “I don’t mind,” he says, instead.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“It’s a good mini-series.”

“You can watch it literally any time.”

Enjolras really blushes, then, looking down at the comforter and shrugging. “I just…” his voice gets impossibly soft. “I was thinking it would be nice to spend some time together.”

Grantaire lets that sentence run over and over in his mind as he struggles to find anything to say in return, anything at all.

Enjolras continues, shifts a little. “I was thinking maybe-” he leans in, slips a hand up and under Grantaire’s shirt, lets it rest on his ribs. “Maybe-”

Oh.

Oh, okay.

Grantaire stares. Enjolras stares back. “You want-”

Enjolras nods, pretty sure of himself, all things considered. “Yeah, can I-” And it doesn’t really matter what he wants, because Grantaire wants it, too, so he nods, but then Enjolras is leaning in and setting the other hand on the back of Grantaire’s neck and kissing him.

What.

Enjolras is still kissing him, though, albeit so, so softly (soft like his voice, soft like his skin), so Grantaire decides not to look a gift horse in the mouth and simply kisses back. And it’s like that’s all Enjolras had been waiting for, just then, because he makes a gratified little noise and moves to straddle Grantaire and kisses him a thousand times deeper than before.

There’s tongue involved, all of a sudden. Tongue, and Enjolras’s hand in Grantaire’s hair, and Grantaire can do nothing to stop his hands from clinging desperately to Enjolras’s back like that will stop him from pulling away.

Only, he doesn’t pull away. He… pushes, kind of, until Grantaire almost falls and they end up lying together, sideways on the hotel bed, Enjolras on top and still kissing Grantaire and moving slowly like this is all there is and has ever been.

And, well, Grantaire agrees with the sentiment, but that’s a bit of a different situation, he thinks.

And so they kiss.

And kiss.

And kiss, and kiss, and kiss, and Enjolras kind of wrestles Grantaire’s shirt off again, and Grantaire takes that as a cue to maybe make a move and start blowing Enjolras, this time around, but Enjolras, suddenly so attentive, grabs him and pulls him closer and spends a moment with his face buried in Grantaire’s neck before moving back up to his lips.

And then they kiss again. Grantaire can feel Enjolras beneath his hands, and more so when he works up the nerve to slide his hands up under that dorky pajama shirt, and still more so when Enjolras--not even breaking the kiss--guides his hands to the buttons and breathes deep as Grantaire works them all free. And surely that’s it, surely Enjolras wants something more now that they’re both half-naked and pressed skin-to-skin, but no, he is stopped again, held close.

It’s wonderful, but Grantaire is going to go crazy, because he doesn’t _understand._

Enjolras licks into his mouth and then keeps kissing him slow and makes a happy little sound and Grantaire can’t help it--maybe it’s in his nature to ruin wonderful things--he pulls away and says, “Fuck, Enj, what- what do you want, what can I-”

Enjolras is off of him in an instant, folded up cross-legged like he’d always been sitting there, the whole evening.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Sorry,” Enjolras mutters. “I-”

Grantaire flounders. “No, I- No, it was my fault, it’s fine, we can keep-”

Enjolras shakes his head. “This was such a bad idea.”

“I-” Grantaire sits up, puts his face in his hands. “Fuck,” he hisses. Oh, he should have known, he should have expected this.

“I’m going to go to sleep, I think,” says Enjolras, and sets his laptop down on the floor and turns off the light and lies down on his half of the bed, so Grantaire lies down, too, and curses everything that he’s ever done.

 

* * *

 

But again, somehow, Grantaire goes to sleep easy when Enjolras is beside him, because he’s almost out when he feels Enjolras, warm and a little bony, press up against his back.

He tenses.

“I didn’t want anything else,” Enjolras whispers, and Grantaire almost doesn’t know what he’s talking about, not before he remembers what he said to fuck it all up.

He stays quiet, lets Enjolras talk, because he doesn’t know if that means that Enjolras didn’t want anything else from Grantaire at all, or if that meant that he had never wanted anything more than kissing, or if that meant… meant… whatever the fuck else it could mean.

“I just wanted-” There’s something really, really fragile in Enjolras’s voice that is making Grantaire really, really nervous. “I really like you a lot,” he settles on, after far too much silence.

“What?” Grantaire has already spoken by the time he realizes that he wasn’t going to.

Enjolras breathes a trembling breath in, out. “I thought it would be fine, just to- to… but I-” Grantaire legitimately fears that Enjolras might be crying. “I kind of have a lot of feelings for you, and I went about it in a horrible way, and I just wanted- I just wanted you to kiss me, but-” He sniffs. “But it doesn’t work like that,” he whispers, mostly to himself.

Grantaire can’t make heads or tails of it. “What do you-”

“I really like you,” he says, “I really, really like you.” And yes, now he’s crying. Not too hard, but he’s crying, and Grantaire doesn’t know what he did wrong, and- “Like, I love you, like you, and I- I just- I just-”

He breaks off, but Grantaire’s mind is going a mile a minute, trying to reconfigure every single piece of information acquired over the past four years. Over the past twenty four hours, even. But he also doesn’t have time for all of that, because Enjolras loves him, and because Enjolras is crying into the back of his neck, and because he can’t bring himself to fucking _move._

“Enj,” Grantaire ends up gasping. “Enj, you-”

Grantaire can feel him nod against his neck.

And then there is nothing Grantaire can do but to turn around, dislodging Enjolras for a painful moment before he finds the fucking _light,_ first of all, and then his hands find Enjolras’s skinny little shoulders and pull him close once more, because- “Enj, you- I- I-” He can’t quite get it out, but he’ll get around to it, and right now, he just needs Enjolras to kiss him again. And so he leans in, and Enjolras gasps, and then Grantaire kisses him, and it’s a little teary and a little clumsy but it’s Enjolras, Enjolras who _loves him, likes him_.

Wow.

“I love you,” Grantaire says against his lips, when he has the time, and Enjolras buries his face in Grantaire’s neck and breathes in deep and shaky and Grantaire just holds him tight.

**Author's Note:**

> enjolras: oh no... there's only one bed... whatever shall we do...
> 
> enj is a DORK and it's canon and you can all fight me about it but it's true


End file.
